


if we hold on together

by Lexie



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Family, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 11:17:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8622544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/pseuds/Lexie
Summary: "Robert," says Victoria, stepping in and laying a hand on his arm, "you heard her. Aaron's gonna be all right."

  "I can't," Robert says, low, and he stops. His voice has gone hoarse. "I can't leave him."

  He's said it loud enough to be heard, but it still feels like they're all listening to something they ought not to. Chas' traitorous heart aches.
It's a long night, after the crash.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings about Aaron and the people who love him.

Chas didn't lie, when she said she was off to the vending machines.

Granted, she goes downstairs to find the vending machines purely to avoid making a liar of herself, but still, it has to count for something.

Deep breaths, nice and steady, Chas tells herself, and she pointedly doesn't look at her own reflection in the snack machine glass. 

"Chas?" asks a familiar voice, and Chas starts and hurriedly wipes under her eyes — that's a right mess of her makeup, but can't be helped now — blinks a few times, and turns around, smile at the ready.

It drops off her face the second she sees Paddy. "Oh, Paddy, no, not you too?" she breathes, stepping in close. He looks like he went a round with a combine harvester, his face and head cut up and bruised, and his arm tucked into a sling. "Was half the village on that flipping bypass?"

"What's — were _you_?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "No, no no." 

He looks terrible; ghastly, really. His face is normally so expressive and he just looks — blank, now. He needs to know, but in this moment, Chas doesn't want to be the one to have to tell him. 

Can't always get what you want. She wraps her arms around herself and looks up wearily. "I phoned, earlier. Guess I'm a _little_ less angry, now, about you not answering." 

"Chas," Paddy says, wary, and watching the horror roll across his face makes her feel sick to her stomach. His chin rises sharply. Urgent: " _Aaron_ —"

Chas has lifted her hands and is shaking her head before he has even gotten the second syllable of her son's name out of his mouth. "He'll be fine. Took a bad turn, a little while ago, and make no mistake, he's gonna get an earful over scaring me like that, but the doctors say he's stable now."

Paddy shuts his eyes and exhales, slow, the alarm fading from his face just as slowly. He just doesn't look right, stood there in the middle of the hall. There's a hint of grey to his complexion. 

"What're you doing, wandering here all by your lonesome?" she asks. "Come here, let's get you a seat."

"I've been sitting enough, really," he protests, but he lets her hustle him over to the pair of chairs beside the vending machines. Once they're down, she takes his free hand in both of hers, their near knees pushed together.

Chas presses Paddy's hand between hers. "Where's Marlon?"

"Oh," he says dumbly. "Oh, I should have— I need to—" He pulls his hand back and reaches inside his jacket, but stops. "My phone, it's—"

"I'll just give him a ring, shall I?" says Chas, pulling out her phone. Her heart nearly skips a beat when she sees she has a new text, but it's only Liv deciding she wants a packet of crisps after all. Bless her.

"Chas," Paddy says, and his voice is thin and awful. "It's just, ah — Rhona's in intensive care. They don't know if she'll make it."

Chas's heart drops into her shoes. "God, _Paddy_." She reaches up and hugs him around the neck. "I'm so sorry," she says into his shoulder. He puts his good arm around her and leans against her, solid and warm. She squeezes him, mindful of his sling. "She'll be all right; I'm sure she will be. She has to be."

Paddy nods, just a little bit, and it's a long minute before he finally draws back. "You're _sure_ Aaron is fine?" he asks her.

"Positive," Chas says, and she smiles at him.

There's more life starting to come back into his shellshocked face, now. He shoots her a familiar dubious look. "Then what're you doing down here crying, Chas?"

"Needed a minute to have a strop for myself, didn't I?" she says. "I've got a upset teenage girl on my hands upstairs, and Robert to boot." She sighs and tosses him a conspiratorial look. "Don't know when I became the cool head in a crisis, but between you and me, Paddy, I don't like it."

He finally smiles, a little bit. "We're getting old," he says.

"Speak for yourself," Chas says, snippy tone likely betrayed by the wobble to her smile, and Paddy reaches over and takes her hand again. 

It feels like the old days, this, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Paddy in an A&E waiting room. She wonders if he's thinking it, too.

It's not those bad old days, though — thank God — and Chas has never been accused of keeping her gob shut when it comes to her son.

"Paddy, what _happened_?" she bursts out. "Aaron's hardly been awake, and I can't get much sense out of Robert."

"Were they together, then?" There's a bitter twist to Paddy's mouth, like he's ready to place the blame squarely on Robert's shoulders. 

God knows Chas has spent her fair share of time blaming Robert Sugden in the last two years, all of it _richly_ deserved. But not this.

"And it's a good thing, or Aaron wouldn't've made it," she says. "That stupid car of his wound up at the bottom of the lake, with him trapped in it." Her eyes feel hot, her voice catching in her throat. Nice slow, deep breaths, she tells herself again.

Chas _doesn't_ know exactly what happened. Robert hasn't been keen to talk about it, and all Adam had reported was a massive crash on the motorway and seeing Robert coming up to the surface of the lake dragging Aaron with him. She knows they had to start him breathing again right there on the beach. She knows Aaron was hurt badly enough to bleed internally; there was a litany of injuries recited by the surgeon that she'd had to let pass in one ear and right out the other for the sake of her composure. She'll get the full list, later.

Her boy, pinned in a wrecked car at the bottom of a lake, terrified as water came pouring in on him. She doesn't want to think about it. She can't.

"He's all right," she finishes. "He is." It's hard to say who Chas is reassuring more: herself or Paddy. This is the first she's had a chance to talk it through; to acknowledge it aloud. She looks up again. Paddy is watching her intently, gone still and silent. "But it was close, Paddy. Too close."

He nods like he understands, but he's also upped the pressure of his grip to the point that he's nearly crushing her hand. "Paddy, love," she gasps.

"Sorry, sorry!" he says, immediately letting up. "I don't — I don't know exactly _what_ happened, and I definitely didn't know Aaron—" He stops, voice gone thick, and then determinedly starts again. "There was this fog. I only looked away for a minute, just a _minute_ , Chas, and there was a car stood on its roof in the middle of the road."

She rubs the back of his hand. "I know you would've done everything you could to avoid it," she says, eyes steady on his, and he looks down. "Why don't you come wait upstairs? We could use the company, and you shouldn't be alone."

His face falls even further. "It's only me and Pierce," he says, "and he doesn't exactly want me here. If I leave and something happens to Rhona, I don't—" His voice goes desperate and soft. He always was soft, Paddy. Too soft for a boyfriend, in the end, but the kindest and most loyal of mates. "I don't think he'd _tell_ me."

"Right," Chas says, firm. "Marlon to the rescue it is." She picks up her phone from her lap and thumbs through her contacts to Marlon.

Marlon answers with a strained, "Now isn't exactly a good time, Chastity."

"Tough cookies, Marlon," says Chas. "I'm in hospital with Paddy; you need to get over here, now." 

Marlon lets out an explosive breath. "I'm nearly there," he says, frantically. "Is he all right? Is Rhona?"

"You knew?" Chas asks, and Paddy raises his head and looks at her in surprise.

"I had a slight _inkling_ , yes, when they went tearing off and then an endless parade of sirens drove past, the ring road was backed up for miles, and neither of them will answer their phones," Marlon snaps. " _Chas_ —"

"Paddy's banged up but okay," she says. "Rhona's out of theatre and we're waiting for news."

Marlon exhales something thick that sounds like it's probably a curse. "Okay! _Okay_. I'm in the car park now; two minutes."

"Third floor. Drive carefully, please," Chas says, and, promise secured, she hangs up.

"Right then, that's Marlon sorted," Chas tells Paddy, setting her phone back in her lap. "He's just parking the car." Paddy nods. He's still too quiet. "You sure you don't want to come up? You could look in on Aaron."

Paddy swallows hard. She sees the desperate, conflicted want in his face. "It's not that I don't want to," he says, hoarse. "But Rhona, and Pierce..."

"You'll just have to come visit when he's awake again," she says with a smile that she knows doesn't reach her eyes, and she pats his good elbow. "That's all. He'll be made up to see you."

"Will he?" Paddy asks softly. "I've made a proper mess of things with him, this past year."

"Aaron loves you," she says, firm. "He'll want to see you."

Paddy nods a couple of times, looking down. They're both quiet.

Every minute Chas is away from the other waiting room feels like a mistake; like if she isn't right there, _willing_ her boy to be well, everything will shatter. And she's left Liv with Robert, who she hardly trusts to take care of his own self at the moment.

She lets out a long, slow, shaky exhale. "Promised Liv some crisps," she says, with a nod to the vending machine, and she rises to take a look at it. "That girl is a bottomless pit, I swear."

Paddy spares her a small smile, but it fades quickly. "How's she taking it?"

"She's scared, poor lamb. Holding it together, though," Chas says, feeding coins into the machine. She gives a small huff of amusement; gallows humour at its finest. "Better than some of us adults."

Paddy makes for a subdued audience for Chas's ensuing struggle with the vending machine. She finally manages to get it to spit out a packet of prawn cocktail crisps just as Marlon comes skidding up.

"Paddy!" he cries, and they hug fiercely; more fiercely, judging by Paddy's grimace, than is probably best for his injuries.

"Steady on, Marlon!" Chas warns. "The man's been in a crash."

Marlon drops Paddy like a hot potato. Despite herself and the gravity of the moment, Chas very nearly laughs.

"Where's Leo?" Paddy asks, straight away.

"Carly's with him; I took him home. Rhona?" Marlon counters, wild-eyed.

"Dunno," Paddy says softly, and abruptly, Chas thinks that if she has to stand here for another minute, absorbing yet another person's grief and fear, she'll start screaming and she won't be able to stop. 

"I'm gonna go back upstairs, right?" she says, and she gives Paddy's arm one last squeeze. "She'll come round. Give us a shout."

"Yeah," Paddy says, low. "Give Aaron my love."

She smiles at him. It feels like a terrible expression on her face, but at least she gives it a go. "Come give it yourself, once Rhona's woken up."

"Wait, _Aaron_?" Marlon asks, his face kicked up even further into alarm.

"It's all right, Marlon," Chas says. "Paddy can fill you in." It's not kind, but Chas needs to leave. The walls feel like they're closing in. Her face is hot and prickling. She pats Marlon's shoulder and neatly ducks past him, and finds the nearest ladies' around the corner.

Standing at the sink, Chas splashes cold water into her face. There's a florescent light buzzing somewhere overhead and everything is tinged antiseptic yellow. She leans on the sink with both hands. She draws air into her lungs and pictures Liv's scared little face; the way she's been looking to Chas or to Robert, wide-eyed and absolutely terrified, when she thinks nobody's paying attention to her. 

Chas looks at squarely at her own pale face in the mirror. 

"Get it together, lady," she orders herself, and she does a quick dab of her makeup with a bit of toilet paper.

 

In the nearest stairwell, she rings Cain. Her phone's been on silent, but he's apparently belled twice in the last five minutes. "Finally!" he barks when he answers. "What's Marlon on about?"

"Your nephew's fine, thanks," she snaps at him. "Just half-drowned and had to get brought round twice." 

"He _what_?"

She sinks against the wall, leaning heavily. "He's only gone and scared at least five years off me life," she says. "His heart _stopped_ , Cain."

There's a second of silence where all she can hear is Cain's breathing, gone sharp, and then he demands, "Are you at A&E?"

"Yeah," she says wearily. She scrubs her free hand over her face. "Just waiting for them to let us see him again."

"Wait there," Cain says, and he hangs up.

 

Upstairs, Chas finds Liv, Robert, and Victoria huddled together in the waiting room. Victoria has utterly crumpled against Robert on the sofa, tucked beneath his arm with his cheek pressed against her hair. 

Chas' knees nearly give out. No, is all she can think. Please, God, no.

She wavers in the doorway, heart thundering in her ears and her mouth turned to ash. There's a scream rising in her throat. Then Robert glances up and he looks just as shattered as he did when she left, which is, oddly, a comfort. 

"James Barton," Robert says softly. His sister doesn't lift her head from his shoulder. "He didn't make it."

The bottom drops out of Chas's stomach, a shiver of shock and guilty relief all at once. "Oh." She sits down heavily on the arm of the chair where Liv is sitting, and she woodenly drops the crisps into Liv's lap. Chas had loved James, once. "God," she says numbly. "That's awful."

"The doctor said we can see Aaron again soon," Liv says to her, because she's an angel. She's toying with the packet of crisps. Her face is still scarlet from crying earlier. "She said he's okay."

Chas nods her thanks, and then looks to Victoria and Robert again. "Where's Adam?"

Robert glances down at his sister, and she slowly sits up, wiping her tearstained face with her sleeve. "Downstairs with Moira and the family," Victoria says. "I needed a break, just for a minute." She exhales shakily, visibly putting on a brave face as she gathers her purse.

"You can stay, you know," Robert says. He's looking at Victoria with obvious concern; it's the calmest Chas has seen him since she and Liv arrived.

"No, no, I've been gone long enough." Victoria squeezes his knee, then stands up. "Text us when there's any news, yeah?"

"Yeah," says Chas. "We will, love."

With Victoria gone, they all fall quiet again. Calm moment or not, Robert still looks like he's on the verge. Chas finds it hard to watch him, sitting hunched over his knees, the picture of devastation.

"Did you get lost?" says Liv, looking up at Chas. Her usual lovely demeanor is lacking some of its characteristic edge.

"Well, I ran into Paddy downstairs, didn't I," says Chas, and, out of the corner of her eye, she sees Robert's head come up. "He's waiting for word on Rhona. She's in a bad way."

"Were they in the accident too?" Liv asks incredulously.

At the same time, Robert says, "He didn't come back with you?"

"Don't kick off," she says. "I told him to come when Aaron's awake. But _you_ , mister. Has anyone even had a look at you?"

His brow furrows in clear confusion, pulling at the bloody wounds around his eye. Chas lifts her eyebrows at him.

Robert looks away. "It wasn't important," he says. Meaning he likely avoided an exam when he first arrived, due to the sheer number of critically-injured patients the staff had been overrun with, and the idiot hasn't bothered to have his head seen to since.

"You _do_ realise he'll kill us both if you keel over when he wakes up," she says, rising. "And Victoria'll be right next in line to kill us all over again." She thinks he may protest behind her, but she ignores him as she goes to the nurse's station.

It takes the combined efforts of a _very_ no-nonsense nurse and Chas to convince Robert that he needs to go step into an exam room for a few minutes, and in the end, it's Liv who actually manages it.

"Here," Liv says, interrupting the argument by holding out her iPhone with a look of intense determination. Robert stares at her phone, then up at Liv. Chas isn't sure where this is going, either, until Liv continues, "Your phone went in the water, right? So." She waggles her phone at him. "We'll ring you, if the doctor comes back again."

Liv is, as a general rule, glued to that phone. 

Chas could _kiss_ her.

Robert slowly reaches out and takes Liv's phone.

"Come on," says the nurse, not without sympathy. "I'll have you back straight away."

Robert is still hesitating, staring at the iPhone in his hand. "Robert," says Chas. She raises her eyebrows again and tilts her head meaningfully at the nurse. It's a look, she knows, that brooks no argument. It's a pity she wasn't better at it when Aaron was a narky teenager.

He exhales, then stands up. Apparently it does a wonder on narky adult men as well. "If anything changes—"

"We will," Liv promises, her face a shining beacon of honesty, and they watch him walk away with the nurse.

"That," says Chas, "was brilliant." She wraps her arm around Liv's shoulders and pulls her in against her side. "You're a genius, lady."

"D'you think he's okay?" Liv asks, letting Chas steal a cuddle.

"I do, love," Chas says. She breathes deep and rubs Liv's far shoulder. If she says and thinks things often enough, maybe they'll be true. She doesn't think about what the Bartons are going through. She is not going to be sick. "I think everybody's gonna be just fine."

 

Cain, eventually, bursts through the door like the building's on fire. Chas would be up like a shot to make him hug her if she didn't already have a sleepy Liv curled up against her side. "Took your time," she says sharply, instead.

"Motorway's still a mess," he says. There's tension in his face and voice, which Chas can easily guess at the meaning of: 'you can't have a go if you didn't ring me.' Also, 'I'm deeply concerned but I'm emotionally stunted so I won't show it.' "How's Aaron?"

"We should be able to see him again any time now," says Chas. She raises her voice, glaring over at the desk. "That's what this lot keeps _telling us_ , anyway."

The nurse manning the desk glances over, but apparently doesn't have anything to add.

Cain exhales explosively and, with a thump that fairly shakes the building, sits down hard in the armchair. He looks around. "Where's Sugden?"

"Don't start," Chas says, rolling her eyes. "Getting him to leave with a nurse was like pulling teeth."

" _I'm_ gonna start pulling teeth if I have to," Cain says darkly.

"Leave him alone," spits Liv. She and Robert are thick as thieves, these days; not that either of them will admit to it. "He wasn't driving; Aaron was. Robert saved him." She's still sitting tucked against Chas but her shoulders are set hard under Chas's arm, like she's just waiting to kick off. She and her brother really are two of a kind.

Cain turns a critical eye on Chas, his mouth set tightly. "That true?"

"Yeah," Chas says, petting Liv's hair to calm her. The last thing she needs is Liv and Cain winding each other up, God help them. She shoots Cain a warning look. "Don't have a go."

"I'm not," he defends. "Just trying to figure out what in the hell happened, aren't I? Lisa and that lot've been texting."

Marlon's big mouth strikes again, Chas thinks. "Aaron and Robert were in that crash on the motorway. The car ended up in the lake. Aaron went into theatre for bleeding in his liver, and he had a bit of a wobble after the op but he's doing okay now." She's getting good at summarising it — her voice is steady and all.

Chas could have rang Cain. She could've rang Lisa, Charity, Zak — the list goes on. Any of them would have turned up at A&E in an instant. She belled Paddy, earlier, and the words stuck in her throat when she tried to explain what had happened to his voicemail, and after that, she stopped. Saying it out loud made it real.

But it's easier, now, knowing that Aaron's already made it through the worst of it.

Cain nods slowly, his eyebrows pulled together and his face inscrutable. He's still looking at her.

It's almost a relief when Robert shuffles back to join them. "Concussion," Robert says, to Chas's expectant look. He says it with a shrug, dropping into an armchair again. The cut above his eye looks less bloody than it had. He doesn't give Cain so much as a second glance.

"D'you even get medicine for that?" Liv asks dubiously, peering over at him.

"Paracetamol and plenty of rest," Robert recites, clearly aping the nurse, and he looks at Chas like he's daring her to say he ought to go sleep.

Chas isn't telling _anyone_ they can leave until she sees her boy for herself.

 

By the time the doctor finally comes back, the nursing shift has changed over and there's an entirely new sea of faces on the ward. Cain paced for a time and now has been looming over them all, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, for what feels like ages. Liv was dozing under Chas's arm, tucked up against her side, but she jerks awake the second that Chas goes tense. 

"Ms. Dingle?" the doctor says. She introduced herself, at some point, but Chas has frankly spoken to so many people in medical scrubs tonight that their names and faces have all run together by now. "Aaron is resting comfortably, if you'd still like to see him."

" 'If we'd still like to see him,' _honestly_ ," says Chas tartly, nudging Liv up to her feet and herding her along after the doctor and Cain. There's no tall shadow at their heels, though, so she looks back. 

Robert is still sitting on the sofa, staring after them. He's bricking it. She can see it in his face.

Chas will never forgive him for what he's done. To Katie. To Aaron. To Paddy, to Andy, to so many good, kind people. She will never forget it. She'll never love him the way she'd once idly thought she would love any son-in-law Aaron brought into their lives ( _if_ Aaron brought a son-in-law into their lives — that was in question, for a long time).

But Robert spends every day under Chas's roof mooning after Aaron, making a far more decent tea than Charity or Aaron are capable of managing, exchanging barbs with Charity, laughing at Liv's smart mouth and conning her into doing her homework. He saved her son. He'd do anything for her boy, and he nearly did today, she reckons. He's nearly as terrified of losing Aaron as Chas is herself. Aaron loves him.

Aaron's still here because of him.

"Come on, then," Chas says. "Let's go see him. Second time's the charm, innit?"

Robert's hollow look cracks, at that; he smiles a bit, glancing down, and he finally gets up.

 

"Is he really just..." 

Liv trails off, but they all know what she's asking. 

Chas is thinking it herself, leaning against the window and looking in on Aaron lying so still. 

"He's sleeping," the doctor says. Chas likes this one. It's a delicate balance to walk between reassuring and patronising, and this doctor's been keeping it well. She _must_ be doing all right, considering Liv hasn't gone off at her yet. "That's all. He needs the rest."

Aaron's apparently been graduated from an oxygen mask to a nasal cannula, so Chas can actually see his face now. He's got more colour in his cheeks this time. They're at a distance, out in the corridor, but she still watches for the reassuring steady rise and fall of his chest under the blankets.

"When'll he come round?" Cain says. He's standing with his arms folded, a reassuringly steady and intimidating presence beside Chas.

"I can't say for sure," says the doctor, whose name Chas really ought to know by now. "Aaron's still under the effects of the morphine. But I'd expect it by the time you come back in the morning."

" 'Come back'?" Liv asks, ominous, and they're saved from an exhausted, angry meltdown by Victoria reappearing from the lifts. Chas had texted her, just briefly to give the good news; she hadn't wanted to intrude on the Bartons. God, James. She can't think of James just yet.

"How's Aaron?" Vic asks. The doctor, wise lady that she clearly is, takes the opportunity to smile at them and then escape.

"Still snoozin' away," says Chas lightly. 

"Good," says Vic with a relieved sway. "That's so good."

"Doctor said he'll wake up in the mornin'," says Liv, shooting Chas a sceptical look with her eyes narrowed. Chas narrows her eyes right back.

Beside Chas, Cain shifts his weight. He wants to ask, she realises. "How's the family?" Chas asks, because she knows her idiot brother won't.

"Still shocked, I think. Adam's with his mum; we're gonna go back to the farm with her," Victoria says. Her eyes flick to Cain, just for a split second, but she powers on. "The boys are taking Emma home, as well. Wanted to see if there's anything we could do for yous before we go."

"I think we're on the way out too, love," says Chas.

Robert hasn't said anything for ages, apart from asking the doctor a few questions. It's definitely the longest Chas has ever been in a room with him without him running his mouth. But he stiffens now, and says, "No. I'm not going." 

"Robert," says Victoria, stepping in and laying a hand on his arm, "you heard it; he's gonna be all right."

"I can't," Robert says, low, and he stops. His voice has gone hoarse. "I can't leave him."

He's said it loud enough to be heard, but it still feels like they're all listening to something they ought not to. Chas' traitorous heart aches.

Cain apparently doesn't have any such reservations. "Doesn't do Aaron any good to have you sat here killing yourself," he says bluntly, unimpressed.

Robert glances over at them. Chas has seen that stubborn face before. He's not going anywhere. And she understands it — she doesn't want to go anywhere herself, not til she's spoken to her son. But she's got Liv to think of, since Robert so clearly isn't; Liv, who's been falling asleep on her feet and is watching Robert with a white face.

"Right," says Chas. "Everybody else, out."

"We're _leavin'_?" Liv demands.

"Best thing we can do," Chas says lightly, with a squeeze of her arm around Liv's shoulders. "We'll go home, get some rest, and come back in the morning to embarrass the hell out of that brother of yours." She shakes Liv back and forth a couple times, gently, _willing_ her not to kick off, and Liv shakes her head, looking down.

"I'll take you," says Cain, jerking his head toward the lifts.

Chas ushers Liv ahead of her with a loving shove. In the end, Liv goes, though not without a sharp exhale and a last glance back. 

Victoria is giving it one last-ditch effort, pleading, "Rob, why don't you come home with me? Would you please?"

"No," Robert says, but he's soft with her. "Go be with your family."

Victoria makes a wordless furious noise and yanks him down to hug her. "You _are_ my family, you pillock," she says into his neck. It takes him a long moment to hug her back, moving slowly and awkwardly; it's like he's forgotten what hands are for. 

Vic sniffs and briskly pats Robert's shoulders when she draws back. "Try to get _some_ sleep, yeah?"

"At least get someone to bring you a blanket. You'll catch your death," Chas tells Robert, and he still looks dazed to have her concern turned on him. "Give us a ring if owt changes."

"I will," he promises, low. He hasn't got a working phone, but if nothing else, Chas can trust him to be resourceful.

"We'll see you in the morning," she says firmly. " _Both_ of you." 

She looks in on Aaron, one last time. He's moved a bit in his sleep and his head is tilted in the opposite direction, now. The machines are all still softly, steadily beeping. He's all right, she tells herself. He's okay. His face looks peaceful.

"Is Robert really not coming?" Liv asks, when Chas joins her and Cain at the lift.

"Yeah, but that's fine," Chas tells her. "He's going to mope around this place all night, and you and I, my love, are gonna live large back home."

"Live large?" Liv questions, her face drawn up into a dubious scowl. God, is she ever Aaron's sister.

"Y'know," Chas says. "Sleeping in our own beds; maybe a bit of telly and a ham sarnie first, if you play your cards right. And then we'll be right back tomorrow. Okay?"

She can feel the concerned, judgmental silence wafting off Cain, who's got a face like a wet weekend. Liv, though, grimaces but lets herself be shepherded outside. Small mercies.

 

They're all quiet, in the car. Liv tucks up in the backseat and Cain doesn't even have a go at her about sticking her dirty feet up and (surely) poking him through the back of the driver's seat.

"He's gonna be fine," Cain finally says, the lights of an oncoming car washing across his face. "You heard that doctor."

"I know," Chas retorts with a quelling look.

"The terror's asleep," he says. "You don't have to play brave with me."

"Nobody," she says savagely, "is playin' anything." There's a teenage girl with a history of snooping and earwigging in the backseat. Chas isn't saying one word that might frighten her.

"Chas," Cain says, clearly irritated but gentler than she thinks she can bear hearing at the moment. It's his 'Chas is losing the plot again' voice; she hates that he's got one, and that she knows exactly what it sounds like.

"Aaron," she says, deliberately, to keep herself from shouting, "is gonna be _fine_. End of."

"End of," echoes Cain, with enough of an edge that she knows it hasn't been dropped, but he lets it go for the moment.

Chas lets herself melt into the passenger seat, limbs heavy with exhaustion. 

"Still got Dingles all over you?" she asks, as a peace offering and to distract herself, when they're finally driving past the vets'. The whole village is dark, at this hour, but Smithy Cottage feels especially so. Chas swallows. 

Cain's phone has been going off for hours, and, wonder of wonders, he's been answering it and responding to texts. Chas is struck by yet another wave of overwhelming gratitude — to the rest of their family, for caring so much, and to Cain for holding space for her.

He shrugs, the headlights swinging across the welcome familiar sight of the Woolly. "Told them he's fine, didn't I? Just wait til the booze-up when he gets out." When he gets out. Sometimes it feels like Chas has spent half of Aaron's adult life waiting for him to come home — from prison, from hospital, from France or Ireland. 

He always comes back, though. Her boy always comes home.

 

"Come on," Chas says, herding Liv to the stairs like a lost little sheep, hands on her shoulders. "Straight to bed."

Cain clearly wants no part in negotiating with an emotionally drained teenage girl. "I'll make sure everything's locked up," he grunts, and he heads for the backroom.

"But you said—" Liv objects.

"You're fallin' asleep on your feet, love," she says. "Like the tiniest, angriest horse you ever saw."

Chas _knows_ Liv's exhausted when Liv gives a little snort.

"Go on with you," Chas says gently, giving her another soft push, and Liv exhales sharply and climbs the stairs, dragging her jacket behind her.

There's no sign of Cain in the backroom. Presumably, he's gone through into the pub. There's no sign of anybody; Chas had half-expected to come home to a pub full of Dingles demanding updates on Aaron's condition. Even Charity must have gone to sleep. As much as Chas loves them all, she's glad of the quiet. The whole building's silent and still, apart from Cain's distant heavy footsteps and Liv banging around upstairs. 

It all looks _normal_ , is the thing. Chas hadn't even been back in the village an hour when her phone rang and she had what was, hands down, the most terrifying conversation of her life. Her suitcase is still sitting at the foot of the stairs in the hall. Her scarf is still thrown across the back of the sofa. Charity must have cleaned up the curry that Chas had been in the process of reheating when Adam rang, but otherwise, the backroom looks like nothing had happened. Like nothing has changed.

There's a pair of Aaron's boots tossed haphazardly on the floor by the kitchen table, the laces hanging loose. Chas had nearly tripped over them earlier. She'd reflexively shouted, "Aaron!" at the stairs, outraged, before realising he wasn't home.

He nearly never came home to pitch his shoes everywhere again, Chas thinks, standing in the dimly-lit backroom with her hand pressed over her mouth, and she finally starts to cry.

The first inkling she gets that Cain has returned is him saying, "Come on, sis, don't cry. That idiot's liver has survived worse."

She laughs, choked and wet, against her hand, glancing over at him. He's standing in the doorway to the pub, and in a minute, she knows, he'll probably, stiffly, wrap her up in his arms. He comes through when she needs him. He always does.

It's just that Liv beats him to it. "Some use _you_ are," she tells Cain savagely from the opposite doorway, and then she comes straight across the room and thumps against Chas, burying her face in Chas's shoulder. She's changed into pyjamas and taken off her shoes, which is how Chas hadn't heard her thundering down the stairs; for a girl who makes at least four times her body weight in noise, she can be awfully sneaky when she wants to. 

"Oi!" objects Cain, and Chas laughs again, more genuinely this time, at the look on his face, and she holds Liv close.

"Thought I told you to go to bed, young lady," Chas says thickly, hand on the back of Liv's head.

"I can't sleep." Liv's voice is muffled by Chas's coat, but she sounds like she's ready for a fight, and like she might be on the verge of tears again. "There's no way."

"Well." Chas gives it some thought, taking a hand off Liv only long enough to wipe her own face. "Promised you a sarnie, didn't I?" She looks over. Cain is watching them, still leaned in the doorway. "How about you? Fancy a midnight snack?"

"Nah." He pushes himself upright and comes across the room. "Got my girlish figure to consider." Liv hiccups a laugh into Chas's shoulder. "Take you back tomorrow for your car," Cain says, and as he passes, he reaches out and touches Chas's arm. 

 

"You have a good chat with your mum, earlier?" Chas asks, later, long after they've curled up on the sofa with empty plates, blankets, and an absolutely rotten film, the telly playing on low. Chas has, if she's honest with herself, dozed off a few times, and couldn't begin to identify the plot or the main characters, though the heroine would definitely be well rid if she binned the hero.

She doesn't even want to know how late the hour is. The sky hasn't started to brighten yet, but she thinks it's not far off. 

Liv shrugs, her shoulder rising and falling against Chas's. She's not great at playing disaffected. She'd come back quiet from that chat with Sandra; hadn't said anything for at least 20 minutes while they were waiting for the doctor. "She wanted to come, but I told her not to. It's not like I need her or anything."

"Uh huh," says Chas, secure in the knowledge that Liv can't see the fondly dubious face she's making at the top of her head. "Well, any time she wants to, she's welcome. Or we could pack you off to Dublin for a visit."

" _No_ ," says Liv sharply, nearly chinning Chas with her vehemence. She settles right away, though, curling up against Chas's side again. "I don't want to go to Dublin. Not now." Chas hears it loud and clear: definitely not before Aaron comes home.

"Okay, love. No Dublin," says Chas, and they watch the film's heroine dramatically beg her boyfriend to take her back. Surreptitiously glancing down at Liv, Chas finds her wrinkling her nose; Chas smiles. 

Chas absently winds two fingers around the end of Liv's long ponytail, where it's falling over her shoulder. "Look how long your hair's getting. Y'know, if you'd actually get up _on time_ , for once, I could do summat with it."

"You?" asks Liv dubiously. "You a hairdresser now?"

"That's what the internet is for, isn't it?" says Chas saucily. She pauses; considers it, for a second. "Really, what we should do is tell Aaron _he's_ got to try."

Liv's not much of a giggler, in general, but she cracks up laughing at that.

It's gonna be fine, Chas reckons. It's all gonna be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> please pretend you don't know that the title is the same as that hilariously cheesy theme song from _The Land Before Time_ ([you're welcome](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObPneATgASs)). IT FITS, OK
> 
> let's be friends [on tumblr](http://do---one.tumblr.com/)!


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